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The case for good jobs : how great companies bring dignity, pay, and meaning to everyone's work / Zeynep Ton.

by Ton, Zeynep.

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Harvard Business Review Press, 2023.

Compensation management.

Personnel management.

Business ethics.

Employee loyalty.

Employee morale.

9781647824174 (hc.)

Alternate title:

How great companies bring dignity, pay, and meaning to everyone's work

252 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.

"Imagine you are a leader in a large company, and you volunteer at a local soup kitchen, helping the needy who can't afford warm meals. On your way out, the director stops you and says, 'I just need you to know that many of the people visiting our services are actually your employees.' This really happened. The leader was shocked. He assumed that because the company paid market rate, the company was doing right by its employees. But market rate isn't a living wage. Market rate doesn't make good jobs. Many leaders want to provide good jobs. They want to pay more, provide dignity and meaning in people's work, and give them opportunities for growth. But they don't know how to start, or they don't think it can be done without hurting the bottom line. Most want to win with customers but are hobbled by a host of service and operational problems largely driven by high employee turnover-and that is partly driven by the low pay. It is indeed a vicious cycle, and Zeynep Ton is here to show the way out: why good jobs combined with strong operations always lead to good outcomes for the business. And why, more than ever in a post-pandemic world, failing to provide good jobs will catch up with you and threaten your business. Practical, prescriptive, and often provocative,' Leading with Good Jobs' is essential reading for leaders of any company that wants to -- needs to -- choose excellence."-- From publisher.

"Investing in workers is good for them and for business, according to this impassioned outing by Ton (The Good Jobs Strategy), a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She contends that prioritizing customer-facing workers boosts profits because it reduces turnover while increasing productivity and customer satisfaction. To that end, she outlines the five tenets of her “good jobs system”: invest in workers (generous hourly rates and consistent schedules), simplify workflow, give employees a voice in how to best serve customers, train employees to perform “both customer-facing and non–customer-facing tasks” (ensuring they can be productive during periods of low traffic), and staff “more hours of labor than the expected workload so that employees can do their jobs without rushing.” Examining companies that have followed this advice, she notes that Costco’s $25 median hourly wage for salespeople boosted employee retention and helped the company increase its annual revenue. Ton also details her work improving employee productivity at Quest Diagnostics’ call center by embracing feedback from reps on how to improve workflow. Persuasively argued and bolstered by astute case studies, this will be a boon to business leaders."--Publishers Weekly.

Zeynep Ton is a Professor of the Practice in the Operations Management group at MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also president of the nonprofit Good Jobs Institute, where she works with companies to improve their operations in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and investors alike. Before joining MIT Sloan, Ton spent seven years on the faculty at Harvard Business School. She is the author of The Good Jobs Strategy: How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profits.

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